Court upholds reprimand of lawyer for showing racy image to court detainees then doing a jerkoff motion toward a woman probation officer who objected

The Supreme Judicial Court concluded today a criminal attorney inappropriately made a sexist fool of himself in the Chelsea District Court lockup and needs to go through his career with a formal reprimand on his record.

The ruling by the state's highest court in the case of Michael Cerulli upholds an earlier decision by the Board of Bar Overseers that the lawyer engaged in conduct unbecoming an officer of the court, "engaging in conduct manifesting bias and prejudice based on sex or national origin" and "providing false statement of material fact" about what he'd done.

The court's ruling summarizes what he did on the morning of Nov. 7, 2019 in the basement lockup of Chelsea District Court, where there were three men in separate adjacent cells and a woman probation officer standing outside the cells as he worked as the day's public defender:

The probation officer went to speak with the detainee in the rear cell on the right. For some minutes, the respondent [Cerulli] stood behind her, listening, asking at least one question, and occasionally making notes on a pad of paper. During this time, the two detainees in the front cells appeared to be conversing with each other, and the probation officer observed the respondent "sort of bantering back and forth with the individuals in the first two cells."

The respondent briefly exited the lockup area. When he returned shortly thereafter, he appeared to have a quick verbal exchange with the detainee in the front right cell. The respondent took his cell phone out, found an image, moved to the front right cell, and showed it to the detainee for several seconds. The respondent had his back to the probation officer and was several feet away from her, but his cell phone was visible to her. She can be seen on the video looking at his cell phone for several seconds.

The hearing committee found that the image, or meme, that the respondent showed to the detainee depicted a scantily clad blond woman, wearing a bustier, thong underwear, and an off-the- shoulder fur jacket, descending a flight of stairs. Its caption stated, "Immigrants are bad," and below the picture are the words, "Unless they have nice legs, screw you for money, and do naked photo shoots with other women." The respondent showed this image to two of the detainees in the lockup area, moving around the area and continuing to talk to at least one of the detainees. The probation officer testified that the respondent said, "That is nineteen," which she believed referred to the age of the woman in the photograph, and "that's why you need to get out of here." For his part, the respondent admitted showing the image to the detainee. His version of the conversation was that the detainee said, "Girls like that like guys like you in suits," and he replied, "So get out of there, get yourself a job, get yourself a suit, and maybe you can get a girl like that," and they laughed together.

The summary continues:

The probation officer testified that she felt very uncomfortable and did not know how to address the situation, but she wanted to say something. As she left the area, she glared at the respondent and said, "I believe you might want to be a little more discreet next time, that was disgusting and inappropriate." The respondent, standing toward the rear of the lockup area, appeared to say something in response. He covered his mouth with his hand and made a face, feigning shame or embarrassment. He eventually moved to the front of the lockup area, bantering briefly with the detainees as he passed them. As he left, he made a gesture with his left hand mimicking a form of male masturbation. The probation officer had left the area by this time and did not see this gesture.

The probation officer complained, the Committee for Public Counsel Services temporarily suspended him from Chelsea District Court and a formal complaint went before the Board of Bar Overseers, which recommended a single justice of the SJC issue a reprimand, which that justice then did - adding that Cerulli had been a lawyer long enough, since 1985, that he certainly should have known better.

Cerulli then appealed to the full court, arguing he didn't get a fair hearing before the single justice and that, in any case, he and the detainees were merely exercising their First Amendment rights to discuss the Trump administration's immigration policies "and that the image, along with its caption, was a satirical comment on that issue."

The full court first said he got a fair hearing:

By displaying the image to the detainees and then crudely dismissing her objection in front of them, he engaged in disrespectful, demeaning conduct toward an employee of the judiciary of a kind plainly inviting disrespect toward her from the detainees as well, thereby interfering with her ability to do her job.

First Amendment? Nope, the court added:

The respondent is not being disciplined for expressing political views. As set forth above, the discipline is for his demeaning and disrespectful conduct toward a probation officer in front of detainees at a court house, while he was acting in his capacity as an attorney. The single justice did not violate his constitutional rights by imposing a public reprimand.